development of OOTP 13 is going well, and we will begin beta testing in 1-2 weeks.

This past week the development of the new "Real Time Simulation Mode" was completed, so I'd like to take a few minutes and explain what this is all about.

Basically, what this mode does is simulate the current day in the background while you continue to browse the game. Sounds simple, but this was quite a programming challenge, but the result was well worth it, as this mode really adds another dimension to the OOTP game experience.

In order to start the real time simulation, simply open the "Play" menu (see screenshot #3) and click on "Start simulation". This initializes the real time simulation, sets the time to the earliest game start time of the day and takes you to the "Live Scores" screen.

Here (see screenshot #1) you see all the games in progress, games that start at a later time or games that have been finished already. Each game shows you the current score, hitter & pitcher, the count / outs, base runners and the last play, so basically all the info you need. You can also directly access the current box score of the game, or enter the game of your choice and watch it. If you are the manager of one of the teams, you can of course take control of the game too. While playing / watching the game, the real time simulation continues (at the pace at which the current game progresses) and you have the option to leave the game again without concluding it.

On the right side of the live scores screen you get updates about all the scoring and interesting events, for example players leaving due to injury, records / milestones, no-hitters going on, hitting streaks, final scores, ejections and notable game performances. Below that section the top performances of the day are listed.

You may also set the speed of the simulation (can be changed during simulation, of course), options available are: Real time, factor 2, factor 5, factor 10, factor 20, factor 60, factor 120. You can also set the auto refresh-rate of screens while browsing the game. The live scores screen itself updates every second so you won't miss a beat.

During real time simulation you can do almost everything you want in the game, although player transactions and the league setup are disabled because these could cause problems. However, trade negotiations do work, but you have to wait for the completion of the sim before the trade can be executed. While browsing the game, a status area at the top informs you about the current time, scoring / event updates and about the current score of the user-controlled team's game. It is updated each second as well, just like the live scores screen. See screenshot #2 as an example.

Once all games have been finished, the real time simulation stops, unless you have set a certain target date in the play menu, in which case OOTP automatically advances to the next day and starts the simulation mode again, and continues to do so until the target date is reached. That way you can for example watch 1 week worth of action where one second equals one real-time minute if you set the speed to factor 60.

You can also save your game during a real time sim, and the next time you load it, it picks up right where it left off.

I personally love this new way of playing OOTP, it really takes immersion to a whole new level.

Oh, and don't forget to pre-order OOTP 13, our special offer ($5 off and the chance to win an iPod Touch 32GB or one of three $100 gift coupons for either Amazon or iTunes) ends in a week!

Cheers,
Markus

PS: Here are the screenshots... Screenshot #2 shows the new minor league organization screen, it features a very useful sortable list which contains all your minor league players.

sweeet!
a nice addition would be a setting to allow the game to alert us to events that are happening during RTS, say for example a no-hitter you could have the option of setting when the game would alert you of one. For example it would only alert you when there are less the a set number of outs left in the no-hitter or only when a player has hit a set number of HR's that you have defined or when a milestone is about to be reached. That way RTS can happen in the background and i wouldn't have to worry about missing that perfect game going on

sweeet!
a nice addition would be a setting to allow the game to alert us to events that are happening during RTS, say for example a no-hitter you could have the option of setting when the game would alert you of one. For example it would only alert you when there are less the a set number of outs left in the no-hitter or only when a player has hit a set number of HR's that you have defined or when a milestone is about to be reached. That way RTS can happen in the background and i wouldn't have to worry about missing that perfect game going on

You will see these at the top of the screen, such highlights get a different background color so you immediately notice when something is going on.

That's absolutely amazing. Cheers to those who thought of this idea and programmed it. I don't think everyone has grasped how game changing this is

I thought of this waaaaay back, but it was not technically possible then. Now Fidel Montoya of our beta team brought the idea back up (thanks Fidel!), and this time it was possible, so I immediately jumped on it and implemented it. It was a lot of work, but it's a lot of fun now that it works!

Was wondering about teaching a player a new pitch or position . Will we be able to tell a pitcher to learn a new pitch or a fielder to learn a new position and set a length of time for them to try to learn it and who teaches them it ? In learning it the personality would effect the learning and use picking a coach or player to teach them the pitch or position would effect the outcome a bit and lots of other factors of course but i was just wondering as i dont like the compete randomness of the old way the pitchers learn new pitches and it was very rare they learn a new pitch and i don't remember them being able to learn a new position really not at least in the way that would id like to see .